Austin Children's Museum

This afternoon, the buddies took us to the Austin Children's Museum, which is free after 4pm on Sundays. We all had such a good time that we may have to rotate it in to our regular weekend activities.

The museum is packed with fun, educational exhibits for its pint-sized visitors. The buddies quickly found the tunnel slide and could have spent the entire afternoon there, had we not steered them towards other exhibits. They went grocery shopping in the Global Market and cooked a tasty meal of real-looking pretend food for us in the Global Diner. They found stations where they could sit on little chairs at little desks and build with blocks or learn about parabolas, bell curves, and ovals. They even milked a fake cow and then delivered the milk bottle to the market. Both enjoyed splashing with pretend fish in the "Splish" exhibit.

There was little doubt what their favorite part of the museum was. Overhead, an electric train ran on tracks above the main part of the museum. Every time it went by, they stopped in their tracks and looked up. After climbing a short flight of stairs we discovered the train depot, where the buddies could restart the train by pressing a button and make the "woo-woo" sound by pulling a cord. Best of all, the could observe the train chugging along up close through the observation glass. They seem to have inherited the train- loving gene from Great- Grandpa Jeff.